Dullest Summer Since 1987 And Wettest Since 1912.

[Guest pjl20101]

According to the tabloid newspapers which I support they say it's been the dullest summer since 1987 and wettest since 1912. It doesn't surprise me of the slightest as its been pretty grim really. Suppose a small crumb of comfort is it hasn't been as cold as last year. Think the melting ice caps are the reason why the jet stream has given us so much rain.

[Richard2901]

299.2mm here easily beating the 2007 total of 261.4mm. Probably the wettest summer since 1985.

One of the coldest ever summers as well but it has been the catastrophic lack of sunshine which has been the worst aspect. Easily the dullest summer since 1912 with the total yet to reach 300 hours. Just passed 295 hours today and the final total could end up below the autumn average of 305 hours

Truly the most depressing season I have ever known.

Edited August 28, 2012 by Richard2901

[Snowyowl9]

Wettest summer since 2007 here,a wet end to august I will say,impressive thunderstorm this morning with heavy showery rain and cool.

1985 gave the loudest thunderstorm on record here.

[Thundery wintry showers]

According to the tabloid newspapers which I support they say it's been the dullest summer since 1987 and wettest since 1912. It doesn't surprise me of the slightest as its been pretty grim really. Suppose a small crumb of comfort is it hasn't been as cold as last year. Think the melting ice caps are the reason why the jet stream has given us so much rain.

Re. the bit in bold, there might be a fair amount of truth behind it. There's still a lot of way to go in climate science research before we can prove or disprove a link, but there's been quite a few papers recently hypothesising about a link between melting Arctic ice caps and a southerly tracking jet stream (also relevant to the cold winter of 2009/10 and the freeze-up in late November and December 2010).

Given that until quite recently the hypothesis was that a warmer globe would result in the jet tracking further and further north, and the 1990s and early to mid 2000s continued as expected, only for the jet to suddenly plunge southwards starting with Summer 2007, it goes to show how unpredictable our climate system really is.

For both Tyne & Wear and North Yorkshire, while it's been a wet summer it hasn't been a record-breaker, but the lack of sunshine in June and most of July broke a lot of records. The first half of August was quite warm and sunny here in North Yorkshire with near-average rainfall (most of which came from thunderstorms early in the month) but the second half has increasingly turned wet and cloudy, so the stats will show it up as a mediocre month.

[Coast]

It certainly seems to have been duller this Summer and possibly it's going to be a bit wetter too. The sun hours look to be about the same as average although I don't think that really equates to dullness and the full figures are of course not in yet. Here are my local ones against a 1971 - 2000 average:

[AWD]

After watching a BBC news report on the 6 o Clock news, it really has been bad hasn't it?

I obviously knew it wasn't a good summer, but apart from above average rainfall, I didnt think it was majorly bad.

However, with the figures quoted by the BBC, it has been a terrible summer. Some severe weather over many parts of the UK causing misery and financial damage.

There's one good thing though, surely next Summer must be better than this one?

[The PIT]

There's one good thing though, surely next Summer must be better than this one?

Nature doesn't work like that. Otherwise it would very easy to predict. Remember at one point they were worried about a drought. There was one paper produced which presumed the dry weather would continue causing severe problems over summer.

[4wd]

According to the tabloid newspapers which I support they say it's been the dullest summer since 1987 and wettest since 1912. It doesn't surprise me of the slightest as its been pretty grim really. Suppose a small crumb of comfort is it hasn't been as cold as last year. Think the melting ice caps are the reason why the jet stream has given us so much rain.

Logic deficit.

Why should anyone presume that when evidently 1912 was wetter?

Last year was very dry for many areas - further logic deficit.

The current AGW propaganda ploy to link any and every weather event to CO2 is clearly working.

I'm amazed so many are so gullible.

June was a wet month here 127mm (+32mm), but the next two months were on the dry side - July 79mm (-21mm), August 70mm (-37mm) - total for summer months combined = about average.

Furthermore year to date 579mm (-11mm) here is about average with a dry winter balanced by wet Spring.

[Seasonal Trim]

Even more surprising considering we started the year with a hosepipe ban!

[Aaron]

This summer in this area has not beaten 2007 or 2008.

[snowfluff]

Even more surprising considering we started the year with a hosepipe ban!

Yes,we were told above ground and below ground water levels were worrying low, then it started raining.

Then we were told it would take 18 months of above average rainfall to address the balance, and it rained some more and more, and never stopped for 6 weeks,so we ended up with the wettest summer on record, Mother nature you have a marvelous trait of making the so called experts look rather silly.

[damianslaw]

Confirmed then - summer 2012 was preety woeful, the wettest in 100 years.. that statistic alone means it can't be described as anything other but poor, combined with it being the dullest for 32 years - BBC now say the dullest since 1980!, adds further weight to its very poor rankings and it has only been a rather average August which has prevented it being a particularly cool one, however, in the north it probably ended up very similiar to last year at least and hasn't provided one lengthy (4-5 day spell) of anything especially warm.

This will be my last post on the summer, and once again for the Lake District it has been an absolute shocker, indeed it has never felt like it ever got going.

Also, the sudden change to very wet weather in early April was marked, and who could have predicted back then that we were about to endure our wettest summer for 100 years putting an end to the drought conditions.. how mother nature continues to balance herself out.. not once did the media mention hosepipe bans all summer, whereas back in late March it was all doom and gloom with many saying the likelihood of replenishing groundwater supplies as very low..

We've now had 6 average/poor/very poor summers in a row, of all the seasons it has been the most dissapointing in recent years. Summer 2012 - good riddance!

Edited August 30, 2012 by damianslaw

[Milhouse]

I feel pretty fortunate to have had a fairly summery last half of Summer. Most days were on the warm side and there was noticeably more sunshine than during the July and August of 2010 and 2011. But June and first half of July were just woeful. I recall the Sunday of the Thames Pageant in June driving along and the car just showing 7c. Add to that a pathetic April and most of May and it was not a good start to the Spring and Summer period.

We are due a good summer next year. How about one that is drier, sunnier and warmer than average for a change. Although i would be happy with one that is just average after this shocker.

[Lake District Blizzard]

Summer 2012 here has been wetter than December 2011 - May 2012, so wetter than Winter and Spring combined, dont think this happens too often.....

[Skip Spence]

We are due a good summer next year.

We were due a good summer this year. Sadly, good summers in the UK are hard to come by and getting rarer by the year.

[Interitus]

Confirmed then - summer 2012 was preety woeful, the wettest in 100 years.. that statistic alone means it can't be described as anything other but poor, combined with it being the dullest for 32 years - BBC now say the dullest since 1980!, adds further weight to its very poor rankings and it has only been a rather average August which has prevented it being a particularly cool one, however, in the north it probably ended up very similiar to last year at least and hasn't provided one lengthy (4-5 day spell) of anything especially warm.

This will be my last post on the summer, and once again for the Lake District it has been an absolute shocker, indeed it has never felt like it ever got going.

Also, the sudden change to very wet weather in early April was marked, and who could have predicted back then that we were about to endure our wettest summer for 100 years putting an end to the drought conditions.. how mother nature continues to balance herself out.. not once did the media mention hosepipe bans all summer, whereas back in late March it was all doom and gloom with many saying the likelihood of replenishing groundwater supplies as very low..

We've now had 6 average/poor/very poor summers in a row, of all the seasons it has been the most dissapointing in recent years. Summer 2012 - good riddance!

As a result of notable out of season warmth but more largely due to poor summers, many places in the northwest of England have had their highest temperature of the year outside of the summer months for the past two years, and for Keswick and St Bees Head it is three years in succession, very unusual.

Indeed, for St Bees, the last two years weren't even close to summer time, being in October and April - that's when you know you've not had a summer!

[virtualsphere]

Not really unexpected - the only thing which is perhaps surprising is the lack of severe reported flooding given the problems in 2007 and considering 2012 has officially been wetter. Perhaps the reason for this is the drought experienced prior to the start of summer which has helped to balance out the rain over the last few months.

I posted a couple of weeks ago on another thread that overall the summer here was probably on a par with 2007 and 2011, which weren't great, but maybe slightly better than 2008 which was the worst summer that I can remember. At that point I was expecting more of a sunshine and showers theme to the end of August, but here it went back to being heavy rain for the second half of the month which has actually meant that August has finished only 3mm short of June's rainfall - 230mm to 233mm - with the same number of dry days as June: 6. Overall, I'd now have to rate it below those two summers.

If I'm being fair and impartial I would say this summer was probably still better than 2008 due to the decent spell between 20th and 27th July, but what has been really frustrating this year is that the heaviest rain has spoiled all of the bank holidays: the extended Jubilee weekend in June was a washout, and the August Bank Holiday here was the wettest day of the entire summer. What is particularly galling is that it was sunny and warm when the late May bank holiday would have taken place, which we didn't get.

Overall then, 5 of the last 6 summers have been either poor or very poor, with only 2010 being half decent.